New Dashcam Rules Around Europe – Rallye Austria Legends

As Luxembourg definitively bans dashcams we round up the rules in other European countries.

Also, a quick look back at the Rallye Legend event in Austria. A close-up of Belarusian pilots practicing highway take off and landings last week. A road more or less linking Sofia to the European motorway network is just three years away, hopefully, while there’s some mystery about the route of a new road between Vienna and Brno..

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DASHCAM RULES AROUND EUROPE

Banned or discouraged in more countries than you might imagine.

Dashcams – dashboard-mounted video cameras – are an increasingly popular way to keep a record of what happens out on the road, either as evidence to be used after accidents, or just great road videos uploaded onto YouTube.

Footage from Russian drivers who took to the devices early on, and with a vengeance, keeps the internet shocked and amazed on a daily basis, most famously when the Chelyabinsk meteor exploded last February (see above).

The problem in Europe is that data protection laws mean the devices are either banned or subject to legal grey areas in many countries.

Since 2012 dashcams have not been permitted in Austria on pain of a €10,000 fine or even €25,000 for repeat offenders.

On Tuesday, the Luxembourg parliament made it absolutely clear that drivers are not allowed to use dashcams in the Duchy, even to the point that if footage proved a driver’s guilt or innocence it would probably not be admitted as evidence.

In Germany it is also unlikely that dashcam film could be used in the event of a dispute according to the ADAC though privately recorded video of a scenic road trip is okay (Jalopnik went into the German situation in more detail here).

The ADAC says similar problems may also arise in Belgium, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland.

While dashcams are allowed in most other European countries – so far, at least – in France cameras must not obscure the view of the road and in Norway the camera screen must not distract the driver, and the film may only be used for private purposes.

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Rallye Austria Legends: a two day event last week on the roads around Spital am Pyhrn and Trieben, just off the A9 in central Austria. See arboe-rallye.at

Rallye Austria Legends: a two day event last week on the roads around Spital am Pyhrn and Trieben, just off the A9 in central Austria. The impressive line up included most of the classic rally cars – Lancia Delta, Audi Quattro and Sportquattro, Porsche 911s – and this Ferrari 308 GTB, one of two. See more at arboe-rallye.at

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roundup: BULGARIA. The vital, short stretch of motorway linking capital Sofia with the Serbian border – and hence the rest of the European road network – will be open in three years it was announced today. The 55km project will be funded by loans from the European Investment Bank, rather than EU grants, for speed. Just one section will remain to build, Hrabarsko-Sofia, about half the total, to be finished by 2020. CZECH REPUBLIC. Meanwhile, the 135km road between Brno and Vienna will be upgraded by 2018. The existing A5 Nord Autobahn from Vienna will be extended another 20km by 2017. The remaining 15km to the Czech border will be two lanes, as will the final 50km to Brno. It isn’t clear why A5 wouldn’t just be extended to the existing D2 Brno-Bratislava – it is only an extra 15km, mostly on the Austrian side, and all three cities would then be linked by motorway..

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Belarusian pilots practice highway take-off-and-landing on the M4 Minsk-Mogilev motorway near Chutor (ХУТОР) on 10 September with Su-25 + MiG-29 fighter aircraft:

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2 thoughts on “New Dashcam Rules Around Europe – Rallye Austria Legends”

  1. Pingback: Dash Cameras are ILLEGAL in some EU countries !! - Motorhome Forums, Motorhome Discussion, Motorhome Chat

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